A neophyte shottist's exploration and exercise.... Read by dozens daily

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Off the Pigs!

Well, I can live vicariously through other shooters and post about them.

You remember my buddy Frozen? The one that noticed me shooting, bought an XD, then a whole PASSLE of ComBloc guns? Well, NOW he has gone hunting. For feral pigs in Texas!He has a scoped Remington 700 .308 that is his newest toy. All nice and zeroed in. Frozen loads his own bullets so he was confident with what he could do with it. He used 178gr Hornady Amax, for instance, for the bullet.

Him and a buddy (the one that took him down there and knew the land owners) lined up on 3, and they did the whole countdown thing… 3, 2, 1… boom! His buddy got Momma, and Frozen got 2 juveniles. In the head. With one shot (he admits there was some luck involved with the second pig behind the target.) Mmmm, bacon. (Well, actually, sausage. Apparently it is hard to get bacon off of wild pigs. Too lean?)

So we set up in a ground blind, 82yds (we had a laser range finder) from the feeder. We put out our sour corn around 1730 (deer corn mixed with skunked rolling rock and raspberry jello mix) and waited. ~1915 the juveniles come out of the tree line while mom hung about 50yds further back in the trees. He wanted the sow, so I lined up on the piglets (they'd been weaned and were about 35-40lbs on the hoof). We did a 3 count and shot. My bullet entered just behind the ear of one of the piglets and went through both their heads.

Oh, the other guy was using his 7mm Remington Short-Action Ultra Magnum (7mm SAUM).

So, after the first hunt, we go turkey hunting for 2 days to let the pigs come back in. Friday we go out at the same time and do the exact same thing. Same bait, same everything. The pigs even came in at the same time. 3-2-1-shoot again.

I'm not sure about his load, other than it's 54.something grains of varget under 162gr Hornady A-Max's. My load is 44.5gr of Reloader 15 under Hornady 178gr AMax bullets, cartridge over-all length (COAL) of 2.800".

There. Something that will please you reloaders out there. Reloader data!

Anyway, it does sound like fun. Where was this? Texas, I believe. Some varmint control AND some meat.

11 comments:

I asked the same question about getting meat off of feral pigs on a forum, since these things are out of control down south and causing millions of dollars of economic damage. the consensus was that the meat is stringy and tough, without proper vaccinations some of it is not healthy and generally the best use for it would be in processed meat products.

I have hunted hogs several times in TX and it is an awesome sport. My Marling Guide gun is fantastic in the heavy brush. 405 gr SP over 52 gr Varget gives it 1600 fps.Hogs that are under 125lbs are best for eating. It's the older and larger ones that get tough and stringy. The younger ones taste better than pork you get in the mega-mart.

Feral hog is excellent eating - but it is not pork. Best to cook it thoroughly and use a wet method of cooking. Crock potting is (IMHO) the best way to go. The meat has very little fat, so roasting tends to toughen the meat. The disease issue is solved by cooking until the meat reaches an appropriate temperature.

I look forward to shooting a pig someday - or better yet, talking someone strong enough to haul them back into shooting some and bringing me the meat - so I can try some of Hank Shaw's wild boar recipes.

Good Advice

"You never select a shotgun as your primary anti-zombie firearm. It's great for onesy twosey, but zombies travel in hordes. The reload time is onerous, and the ammo, while effective, is heavy and bulky and short ranged."

Big Mistake for Her

If Ginsberg had let Scalia put the words "strict scrutiny" in Heller and Hillary said "Gun control is just not going to be a priority for my administration," Hillary would have been elected President.

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